Escape from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  The crowd cheered, and some even managed to laugh.

  “I ask only that you keep Ben in your thoughts and prayers, and do nothing to further spread rumors that may not be true. And now, in honor of this occasion, I take pride in unveiling this bronze tablet, containing on it the words we live by, the doctrine of our nation, the Tri-States Manifesto!”

  The crowd cheered as Mike jerked on a cord that dropped a shroud from the recently erected bronze tablet. Although many had read the Tri-States Manifesto, they crowded up to the tablet to read it, yet one more time:

  THE TRI-STATES MANIFESTO

  AS ADVOCATES AND SUPPORTERS OF THE TRI-STATES PHILOSOPHY, WE BELIEVE:

  • THAT FREEDOM, LIKE RESPECT, IS EARNED AND MUST BE CONSTANTLY NURTURED AND PROTECTED FROM THOSE WHO WOULD TAKE IT AWAY.

  • IN THE RIGHT OF EVERY LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN TO PROTECT HIS OR HER LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY BY ANY MEANS AT HAND WITHOUT FEAR OF ARREST, CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, OR LAWSUIT. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IS CENTRAL TO MAINTAINING TRUE PERSONAL FREEDOM.

  • THAT LIBERAL POLITICIANS, THEORISTS, AND SOCIALISTS ARE THE GREATEST THREAT TO FREEDOM-LOVING AMERICANS AND THAT THEIR MISGUIDED EFFORTS HAVE CAUSED GRAVE INJUSTICES IN THE FIELDS OF CRIMINAL LAW, EDUCATION, AND PUBLIC WELFARE.

  • THEREFORE IN RESPECT TO CRIMINAL LAW:

  • AN EFFECTIVE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM SHOULD BE GUIDED BY THESE BASIC TENETS:

  — OUR COURTS MUST STOP PANDERING TO CRIMINALS.

  — THE PUNISHMENT MUST FIT THE CRIME.

  — JUSTICE MUST BE FAIR BUT ALSO SWIFT.

  — THERE IS NO PERFECT SOCIETY, ONLY A FAIR ONE.

  • THEREFORE IN RESPECT TO EDUCATION:

  EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO SOLVING PROBLEMS IN THE SOCIETY AND THE LACK OF IT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF AMERICA’S DECLINE.

  AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION:

  — MUST STRESS HARD DISCIPLINE ALONG WITH THE ARTS, SCIENCES, FINE MUSIC, AND BASIC SKILLS IN READING, WRITING, AND MATHEMATICS;

  — MUST TEACH FAIRNESS AND RESPECT;

  — MUST TEACH MORALS, THE DIGNITY OF LABOR, AND THE VALUE OF FAMILY.

  • THEREFORE WITH RESPECT TO WELFARE:

  — WELFARE (WE PREFER WORKFARE) IS RESERVED ONLY FOR THE ELDERLY, INFIRM, AND THOSE WHO NEED A TEMPORARY HELPING HAND, AND THE WELFARE SYSTEM MUST ALSO:

  — INSTILL THE CONCEPT THAT EVERYONE WHO CAN WORK MUST WORK AND BE FORCED TO WORK IF NECESSARY;

  — INSTILL THE CONCEPT THAT THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH AND THAT BEING PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS IN A FREE SOCIETY IS THE ONLY HONORABLE PATH TO TAKE.

  • THAT RACIAL PREJUDICE AND BIGOTRY ARE INTOLERABLE IN A FREE AND VITAL SOCIETY.

  — NO ONE IS WORTHY OF RESPECT SIMPLY BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.

  — RESPECT IS EARNED BY ACTIONS AND BY DEEDS, NOT BY BIRTHRIGHT.

  — THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE ON EARTH, DECENT AND INDECENT. THOSE WHO ARE DECENT WILL FLOURISH, THOSE WHO ARE NOT WILL PERISH.

  — NO LAWS LAID DOWN BY A BODY OF GOVERNMENT CAN MAKE ONE PERSON LIKE ANOTHER.

  • A FREE AND JUST SOCIETY MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS EVEN IF IT MEANS SHEDDING THE BLOOD OF ITS CITIZENS. THE WILLINGNESS OF CITIZENS TO LAYDOWN THEIR LIVES FOR THE BELIEF IN FREEDOM IS A CORNERSTONE OF TRUE DEMOCRACY; WITHOUT THAT WILLINGNESS THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY WILL SURELY CRUMBLE AND FALL INTO THE ASHES OF HISTORY.

  • THEREFORE:

  — ALONG WITH THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, AND THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO PERSONAL PROTECTION, A STRONG, SKILLED, AND WELL-EQUIPPED MILITARY IS ESSENTIAL TO MAINTAINING A FREE SOCIETY.

  — A STRONG MILITARY ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR “ALLIES,” ALLOWING THE SOCIETY TO FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF ITS CITIZENS.

  — THE BUSINESS OF CITIZENS IS NOT THE BUSINESS OF THE WORLD UNLESS THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS ARE INFRINGED UPON BY OUTSIDE FORCES.

  — THE DUTY OF THOSE WHO LIVE IN A FREE SOCIETY IS CLEAR. PERSONAL FREEDOM IS NOT NEGOTIABLE.

  • IN CONCLUSION

  — WE WHO SUPPORT THE TRI-STATES PHILOSOPHY AND LIVE BY ITS CODE AND ITS LAWS PLEDGE TO DEFEND IT BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. WE PLEDGE TO WORK FAIRLY AND JUSTLY TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN A SOCIETY IN WHICH ALL CITIZENS ARE TRULY FREE AND ARE ABLE TO PURSUE PRODUCTIVE LIVES WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT INTERVENTION.

  NINETEEN

  “Look up there!” Jason Pratt said, pointing to the parasail that was circling down from the departing airplane. Pratt was one of a team of six Control Group soldiers who were working the area, still searching for Ben.

  “You think it’s one of Raines’s people, come to find him?” Evan Burke asked.

  “Well, it’s sure as hell not Search and Rescue,” Pratt replied. “Not coming down by parachute.”

  “Maybe not, but it doesn’t seem likely that one person would jump in to support Raines. I mean, hell, as big a wig as he is, you’d think they would bring in a whole army. Or at least a company-sized unit. Not just one man.”

  “Yeah, well, if that one man is anything like Ben Raines, one is all that would be needed,” Pratt said. “In case you haven’t noticed it, that son of a bitch has been holding his own with us. Whoever this is will just make him twice as dangerous.”

  “Then we need to find him and kill him before he can join up with Raines.”

  “Yeah, that’s my thinking,” Pratt said. “Wait, no, don’t kill him yet.”

  “What do you mean, don’t kill him? What the hell are you planning to do with him? Make him a pet?”

  The others laughed at Burke’s suggestion.

  “I said don’t kill him yet,” Pratt said. “If he has come for Raines, then Raines will be looking for him. If we can get to him before Raines, we can use him for bait.”

  “Yeah,” Burke said, seeing Pratt’s plan. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  “Come on,” Pratt said. “He’s conning down pretty fast. Let’s get a move on.”

  Ben also saw the parachutist and came to the same conclusion that Pratt, Burke, and the others had. Whoever it was, was coming for him.

  “I wish you hadn’t come,” he said under his breath as he watched the parasail glide down. “At this juncture, I’m better off by myself.”

  For a moment, Ben considered ignoring the parachutist, but he knew he could not. If the jumper had come for him, he would be in as much danger as Ben was. Ben couldn’t let that happen. He had to connect with the jumper and warn him about the people who were trying to kill him. With a groan, Ben started retracing his steps. It looked as if the jumper was going down at the site of the plane crash.

  “Whoever you are, I give you credit for coming, even though I would rather you hadn’t,” Ben said as he started back. “On the other hand, if you have come for me, then surely you know who I am.”

  Ben hurried back toward the crash site with renewed enthusiasm. On the surface, it might seem a foolhardy thing to do, but it would almost be worth going back into the very teeth of those who were after him if in so doing he could find out who he was and what he was doing here.

  Carrie’s skillful manipulation of the risers allowed her to glide to a perfect landing, just a few feet away from the wreckage. Slipping out of the harness, she ran quickly to the plane, then went inside. Although the cabin was pretty much intact, seats were wrenched out and the floor was buckled, showing the severity of the impact. She picked her way through the strewn wreckage until she reached the flight deck.

  The top of the flight deck was crushed down, the instrument panel was back against the seats, the control wheels were askew, and shockingly, there was a great deal of blood.

  But the seats were empty.

  That gave her a little hope. If her brothers had been killed instantly, they would still be inside the airplane, strapped into their seats.

  She saw that the seat belts had been opened, not torn away. That meant that human hands had been at work, either her brothers’ hands, or someone else’s. Then she noticed that the compass was missing from the instrument panel. It wasn’t wrenched free, it had been removed.
That too gave her a modicum of hope, and she breathed a quick prayer that they were out there, somewhere, trying to navigate their way back to civilization.

  Leaving the airplane, Carrie continued her examination of the wreckage, looking around the crash site for any sign that might lead her to her brothers. That was when she saw six people coming toward her from the tree line. Smiling, she started toward them.

  “Hello!” she called brightly. “Are you the rescue team?” she asked. “Boy, am I glad to see you. Where are my brothers? Have you found them?”

  “Who are you?” one of the men asked. The man who asked the question, like the others, was wearing a black uniform with an orange armband. This was not a uniform that Carrie recognized. Neither the Mounties, nor the army, nor the police, nor any other organization she was familiar with wore such a uniform. In fact, there was something unsettling about the uniforms, almost sinister, and as the men drew closer, her pleasure at the initial encounter turned to apprehension.

  “I asked you a question, lady. Who are you?” the man repeated, and this time he emphasized his question by aiming a submachine gun at her. The others with him followed suit, and Carrie saw herself staring down the barrels of six guns.

  “I . . . I am Carrie Parker,” she said. “I don’t understand this. Who are you? Why are you aiming those guns at me?”

  “I’m asking the questions, Miss Parker. What are you doing here?”

  Carrie pointed toward the wreckage of the airplane. “My brothers were flying this airplane,” she explained. “I’ve come to look for them. Please, do you know anything about them?”

  “Ha! You expect us to believe that you came out here alone to look for the pilots of this plane? A Search and Rescue party of one?”

  “Yes, of course I expect you to believe that, because it is true.”

  “If you had found them, what did you plan to do with them? Carry them out on your back?”

  “No,” Carrie answered. “I was going to tend to them while we waited for the rescue helicopter. You’re not the rescue team, are you?”

  “Hardly, since we are the ones who shot this plane down in the first place,” one of the others said with an evil laugh.

  “You did this? You shot down my brothers’ plane?” Carrie asked in a strained voice. “But why? Why would you do such a thing?”

  “I told you, we’re asking the questions around here,” the first man said. “Now I’m going to ask you again, what are you doing here? And don’t give me any shit about you being a one-woman rescue team.”

  “And I told you, I came to find my brothers. I don’t understand what is going on here. Who are you people?”

  “Hey, Jason, maybe she’s telling the truth,” one of the others said.

  “Jason? Your name is Jason?” Carrie asked.

  “You don’t need to know my name,” the one who seemed to be the leader replied.

  “What are those uniforms? They aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. You aren’t military, are you?”

  “Have you ever heard of an organization called Die Kontrollgruppe?” one of the men asked.

  “No. Should I have?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Come with us.”

  “Come with you where?”

  Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Pratt squeezed off several rounds, and the bullets whistled past Carrie’s head. She screamed, then fell to her knees, crossing her arms in front of her face.

  “Lady, I’m tired of screwing around with you,” Pratt said. “Now, get your ass up and do what I say, or the next time I will shoot to kill.”

  Ben heard the gunfire, and he quickened his pace. If the parachutist had come to help him, he now needed help himself. That is, if it wasn’t already too late.

  When Ben reached the crash site, he saw the parachute wadded up and stuffed just inside the door of the airplane. He also saw several footprints, and found a handful of expended shell casings, but he didn’t see any blood. That meant that the shots were either warning shots, or the shooter had missed.

  If the shooter had merely missed, then whoever he was shooting at would have fled the scene, but a closer examination made him doubt that scenario. From the evidence he could glean through his investigation, it appeared that the parachutist had left with the others. And given that there had been shots fired, he was absolutely certain that the parachutist hadn’t gone with them of his own volition.

  “Damn!” he said again. “I wish you had just stayed home. I could get out of here by myself if I didn’t have anyone else to worry about.”

  Ben had no idea who had come for him, or why. But he knew that, even though he could escape without a great deal of difficulty, he would not. He could not abandon his would-be rescuer.

  “Well, Ben, whoever we are,” he said aloud, “I must say that I respect and admire men of honor and integrity, and I’m glad that we seem to be just such a person.” Ben laughed at his own joke.

  Newport News, Virginia

  The one hundred men who comprised the fifty two-man Shock Squads were at an airport in Newport News. The Shock Squads, called SS by officials of the U.S. Government, were gathered in a large maintenance hangar. Several airplanes were parked inside the hangar, from small, single-engine Cessnas to large, multiengine jets. The aircraft were in various states of repair, from those that were little more than skeletal airframes, to those that were ready to roll out onto the flight line.

  The airport had been formerly known as Patrick Henry Airport, having been named after one of the Revolutionary War heroes. Since the Great War, however, this airport, like so many others, had been renamed. This one was called the Claire Osterman Airport.

  The two-man teams were dressed in one-piece black jumpsuits, and at first glance a casual visitor might think he had happened on a ninja convention. The SS teams stood around long tables, inventorying the weapons and equipment they would be taking with them.

  Derek Owen stepped up onto an elevated platform at the front of the hangar, then picked up a microphone to address them. The speakers squealed in protest, and he let go of the button, then squeezed it again. This time it worked.

  “Men, you are about to embark upon a mission that your fellow countrymen will remember, speak about, and for which you will be honored for years to come. Your actions over the next twenty-four hours will be instrumental in bringing the SUSA back into the Union, thus restoring the United States to its rightful position of power and glory.”

  The men cheered.

  “When do we start?” someone called.

  “Your mission will begin as soon as the airplane lands.”

  “What exactly is our mission?” another of the men asked.

  “Your mission is simple,” Owen said. “You are to kill. If possible, kill people who are in authority: policemen, military officers, members of the SUSA Government. But if those targets aren’t readily available, then you are to kill whoever you can find. The whole idea is to spread terror, convince the people of the SUSA that their government, army, and police force can no longer protect them.”

  “Wait a minute. When you say kill everyone, are you also talking about women and children?” Owen was asked.

  “Especially women and children,” Owen said.

  “Why the hell would you kill women and children? I couldn’t do that. That doesn’t seem right,” the questioner said in reply to Owen’s pronouncement.

  Owen didn’t answer him right away, but turned instead to Carl Roberts and whispered something to him. Roberts nodded, then signaled for two men to accompany him. The three men walked back to the man who had expressed his uneasiness with killing women and children.

  “What is your name?” Roberts asked.

  “Withers. James Withers,” the Shock Squad soldier answered.

  “Would you step outside with us for a moment, please, Mr. Withers?” Roberts asked quietly.

  “Step outside? What for?” Withers replied. He nodded toward the front. “I’m listening to the briefing.”

&nb
sp; “It will only take a moment,” Roberts said.

  Withers started to go with them, then, growing suspicious, stopped and shook his head. “I’d rather not,” he said. “I’d rather stay here and listen to the mission briefing.”

  Roberts didn’t answer. Instead, he looked toward the two men who were with him. He gave them a very controlled, barely perceptible nod. Responding to his unspoken order, the two men stepped up to Withers, one on each side, and they took hold of his arms.

  “Come, please, Mr. Withers,” Roberts said. “Don’t give us any trouble.”

  “Where are we going? What is going on?” Withers asked.

  By now, Owen had suspended his mission briefing and everyone in the hangar was looking toward Roberts, Withers, and the two men with Withers. They took him outside and closed the door behind them.

  For a moment, there was curious silence in the hangar, and everyone looked toward the door. But because it was shut, it blocked off whatever was happening just on the other side.

  “No!” they heard Withers scream.

  Withers’s scream was followed by two quick shots.

  “What the hell? What happened?” someone asked.

  “Shh!” a nearby friend cautioned. “I think now is not the time for dissent.”

  A moment later, the hangar door opened again and Roberts and the men with him returned. Withers returned as well, though now instead of being led by the arms, he was being dragged by the arms.

  “Bring him up here,” Owen ordered.

  The two men dragged Withers up to the front of the hangar and put him on the floor right in front of the platform. Owen looked down at Withers’s body, then back up at the men he’d been addressing. He resumed talking, his voice as calm and well modulated as if he were carrying on a friendly conversation over a cup of coffee.

  “Now, to answer Mr. . . .” Owen looked over at Roberts. “What did he say his name was?”

  “Withers, he said his name was Withers,” Roberts said.

  “Yes. Withers. Well, to answer Mr. Withers’s question as to why we would kill women and children, I give you this. We are engaging in total war, and total war means collateral damage, in which no one has a pass.”